Professor Patrick Sims-Williams FBA

Celtic Languages and Literatures

About this Fellow

Patrick Sims-Williams has been a Fellow of the British Academy since 1996. His research is focused on ancient and medieval Celtic language, literature and history. From 1977 to 1993 he was a Fellow of St John’s College, Cambridge, before becoming Professor of Celtic Studies, Aberystwyth University in 1994. He is the founding editor and publisher of ‘Cambridge Medieval Celtic Studies’ (1981-), renamed ‘Cambrian Medieval Celtic Studies’ in 1993, and also publishes its related book series: see www.cmcspublications.com. Between 1998 and 2008 he served on the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales and he is the current President of the International Congress of Celtic Studies (since 2011). He directs the British Academy project ‘The Development of the Welsh Language/Datblygiad yr Iaith Gymraeg’ (2007-), and has directed eight other collaborative research projects funded by the Leverhulme Trust (2), the AHRC (4), and the Modern Humanities Research Association (2). His work has won the 1992 Sir Israel Gollancz Prize (British Academy), for Religion and Literature in Western England, 600-800; the 1999 Antiquity Prize, for the ‘Best Paper’ in 1998 (‘Genetics, Linguistics and Prehistory: Thinking Big and Thinking Straight’, ‘Antiquity’, 72 (1998), 505-27); the 2007 G. T. Clark Award (Cambrian Archaeological Association), for ‘The Celtic Inscriptions of Britain: Phonology and Chronology’, c. 400-1200; and the 2011 Vernam Hull Prize, for ‘Irish Influence on Medieval Welsh Literature’.

British Academy Appointments

About our Fellows

The British Academy is a fellowship of around 1,400 leading national and international academics elected for their distinction in the humanities and social sciences. Each year, the British Academy elects to its Fellowship up to 52 outstanding UK-based scholars who have achieved academic distinction as reflected in scholarly research activity and publication.

On election, all Fellows are assigned to one of 18 broad disciplinary Sections spanning the humanities and social sciences. Fellows may also become members of an additional Section, according to the range of their scholarly expertise.

Publications

Buchedd Beuno: The Middle Welsh Life of St Beuno, with a Short Grammar of Middle Welsh (2018).

Liber Coronacionis Britanorum: A Medieval Welsh Version of Geoffrey of Monmouth (2017)